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RNA interference GMOs to enter South Africa and Nigeria

Details

Published: 12 August 2017

Such second-generation GM crops are associated with novel biosafety risks

The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) warns in a new report that the South African government has received an application for the commodity clearance (import for food, feed and processing) of a ‘multi-stacked variety’ of genetically modified (GM) maize – MON87427 × MON89034 × MIR162 × MON87411, which represents the entry of the second generation of GMOs in South Africa.

Such GMOs are the latest in the GM push on the wider African continent. Indeed, Nigeria has recently received an application for the field trials of a GM cassava variety that uses RNAi to reduce the amount of starch in cassava, with the purported aim of preventing starch breakdown during storage.

Such second-generation GM crops are associated with novel biosafety risks, which need to be addressed by updating risk assessment protocols to incorporate appropriate experiments. Biosafety testing of MON87411 has been woefully inadequate to date, and has relied on assumptions of safety, while ignoring the latest scientific understanding of the far-reaching effects of RNA (ribonucleic acid) interference, which is now thought to cross species and even kingdom barriers.